UNICEF seeks help for Sudanese children

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), warning that the future of a generation of Sudanese children was at risk, appealed for 19 million US dollars to complete funding for its food and health programs in the war-ravaged country.

UNICEF also urged the warring factions both to speed up efforts to end the civil conflict and to provide unconditional access to the four million women and children it is trying to assist.

The agency, which in February sought $46 million for north and south Sudan, in June scaled back its appeal to $30 million due to lack of donor interest, officials said. "I am convinced that the future of a generation of innocent children is currently at risk," Henk Franken of the Netherlands, Unicef’s representation in Khartoum, told a news briefing in Geneva.